1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus that images a photographic subject using an imaging device, such as a CCD image sensor and a CMOS image sensor, and an imaging method.
2. Description of the Related Art
An electronic camera converts received light into electrical signals and writes the converted signals into a memory. When reflected light of a fluorescent lamp is reflected on an image under an indoor fluorescent lamp, it can be said that a photographic subject is imaged as it is. However, when photographing cooking indoors, fluorescent light from the indoor fluorescent lamp may be reflected, and as a result, a dish or a plate to be originally photographed may not be clearly photographed. In the case when an image generated due to fluorescent light is reflected on a dish, a plate, or a table with high brightness, the cooking mood is spoiled. That is, when light from an emission source of a fluorescent lamp is reflected on a photographic subject, such as a white plate, it has been difficult to properly photograph a photographic subject to be originally photographed.
For this reason, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3429646 proposes an image signal processing technique, and in particular, an image signal processing technique for generating proper image signals by removing unnecessary information from image signals.
Specifically, Japanese Patent No. 3429646 discloses a technique in which a signal level of a first image signal obtained by imaging a photographic subject under fluorescent light or solar light and a signal level of a second image signal obtained by imaging the photographic subject using light emitted from a flash of a camera are normalized, the first and second image signals that are normalized are compared with each other for each pixel, and one having a lower signal level is selected to generate a third image signal.